Sunday, October 5, 2008

College Football Thoughts...

A few thoughts after watching another Saturday of games...

The SEC is very balanced this year. So many good defenses requires strong quarterback play each week. All the low scoring, tight conference games this year were won by the team that got better quarterback play.

UGA 14 USC 7 - Smelley and Garcia rotated in and were ineffective most of the game. Stafford made the plays he needed to make to win the game

Vandy 14 Auburn 13 - Auburn's 2-QB system did not work again and Mackenzi Adams played extremely well in the 2nd half to lead Vandy to the win.

LSU 26 Auburn 21 - Jarrett Lee comes in relief and throws the game winning TD for the Bengal Tigers.

Auburn 14 Tennessee 12 - The only one of these games Auburn wins was due to the 8-23 passing effort of Jonathan Crompton.

With the exception of the 2 bottom feeders Arkansas and Miss St, it appears any team can win anywhere at anytime. Ole Miss was assumed to be a bottom dweller but won at Florida and was a last second FG away from also winning on the road against the best team in the ACC (Wake).

Toughest team to figure out so far? Maryland. The Terps beat Cal at home and won at Clemson, but stumbled against Middle Tennessee and got blown out by Virginia. How does that happen? Speaking of Clemson, I will go ahead and go on record - Clemson will finish 6-6 and Tommy B will be employed for the holiday season.

It looks like the October 25th trip Penn State is taking to Columbus, OH will be for the conference title. If the national title game is between the Big 12 and SEC champs, would the Rose Bowl pick a USC-OSU rematch for their game? They always want Pac-10 vs Big-10, and if neither are in the BCS Championship game, we may get Part Deux.

Texas might be good enough to ruin the Oklahoma-Missouri Big 12 title game everyone wants to see. I watched a good bit of their game against Colorado last night and they are pretty dang good. Strong lines, good skill players, and McCoy looks better than ever. Red River Shootout should be a dandy next week. The winner of that game is in great shape to be in the title mix come December - the loser is looking at a best-case scenario Fiesta Bowl against the Utah-BYU winner. Ouch.

Georgia is back in action next week against Tennessee in Athens and needs to get some confidence back. UT is not a good match-up for the Dawgs because of their OL and DL. Hopefully, Nick Stephens 1st road start will produce a couple of turnovers and UGA can prepare for what would be a nationally significant game against Vandy. Wierd...